UK graduate job vacancies drop nearly 50% in a year, per BBC

UK graduate hiring is falling off a cliff. According to the BBC, graduate job vacancies have dropped by nearly 50% in a year as employers cut entry-level roles in favour of AI and grapple with rising labour costs.

The numbers

Jobs website Adzuna said it had just 8,383 graduate vacancies listed in July, down from 15,397 at the same point last year. That is a drop of 45%, the lowest level of graduate vacancies since Adzuna started recording this data in 2016.

The scale of the decline becomes even clearer when compared with 2017, when more than 55,800 graduate jobs were listed on the website — more than six times the number advertised in July.

Competition is heating up

Adzuna also found competition among job seekers across all levels is rising, with an average of 2.14 job seekers per vacancy in July, up from 1.93 a year earlier.

Sectors such as healthcare, nursing, hospitality and logistics were posting fewer vacancies, while teaching, travel, trade and construction, and manufacturing are still adding roles.

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Why it is happening

Businesses have said employer national insurance and minimum wage hikes have made hiring more expensive, particularly for junior staff. On top of that, employers are increasingly leaning on AI to handle work that used to go to entry-level hires.

Young people have also expressed frustration at the growing number of employers using AI to screen applications. Former government minister Alan Milburn is leading a major review of the youth unemployment crisis, and has previously said the number of entry-level jobs is shrinking, as is the number of part-time jobs traditionally filled by teenagers and students.

The macro backdrop

Official data shows the unemployment rate among 16 to 24 year olds stood at 16.2% in the three months to March 2026, and more than one million young people are now classed as not being in education, employment or training.

Some have said the data might not be reflective of the whole graduate job market and may instead suggest a shift in the way roles are advertised, but the direction of travel for entry-level hiring is hard to ignore.

Options market and stocks to watch

If AI is genuinely eating entry-level headcount, the read-across hits both the AI enablers and the labour-exposed names:

• MSFT: Copilot adoption is central to the “AI replaces junior work” thesis. Watch enterprise seat growth commentary.
• NVDA: The picks-and-shovels beneficiary of every enterprise automation push.
• NOW: ServiceNow’s AI agents are pitched directly at back-office and support roles most exposed to graduate hiring.
• RHT and staffing peers like MAN: A weaker graduate market pressures the recruitment industry’s permanent placement fees.
• LNKD parent Microsoft again sees knock-on effects if job postings volumes stay depressed.

Watch for softer commentary from staffing firms into next earnings, and keep an eye on AI software names for any acceleration in seat expansion tied to headcount reduction.

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